2011 CIOPORA Chronicle - the 50th Anniversary Edition

D.U.S. Working Group
Established in 2010,
CIOPORA’s D.U.S
Working Group
focuses on key
issues surrounding
D.U.S. examination,
in particular the
important role that
D.U.S. can play
in the protection
of new vegetal
varieties. The
D.U.S. Working
Group brings
together leaders
from throughout
the plant breeding
community,
including
researchers,
lawyers, business
people and
representatives
royalty
administration
services.
Working
The D.U.S. Working Group brings together leaders
from throughout the plant breeding community.
Group
focuses on D.U.S.
examination
by Dominique Thévenon
One of the main problems
breeders face when it comes
to the commercial exploitation
of their varieties, is the direct
competition of other protected
varieties that look very similar to
their owns.
Vegetal varieties can be granted a
PBR (Plant Breeder's Right) based
on small visual differences, which in
many cases are not noticeable by the
consumers; this creates confusion
on the market, and is detrimental to
the good exercise of breeders’ rights.
Breeders who invest a lot of time and
money in creating innovative products,
being new fruit or ornamental
types or varieties, must be assured
to be offered the possibility to effectively
protect those creations and to
market them based on strong PBRs.
Reflexion
CIOPORA, concerned with the
potential weakening of protection
titles, proposed to its members the
creation of a working group on
D.U.S., with the aim of initiating
a reflexion on the D.U.S. examination
system in order to propose
improvements.
This working group was actually
formed in early 2010, and the first
kick-off meeting was organized
on the occasion of the CIOPORA
AGM in Seville, Spain in March
2010, where the first working
agenda was defined.
The group is composed of 13
members, representing 7 countries
and over 20 different crops, and
is chaired by Mrs Dominique
Thévenon.
Priority tasks
The second meeting took place
in Amsterdam in June 2010 and
identified more precisely the priority
tasks to “tackle” in relation to
the D.U.S. examination system. It
was decided to first focus on the
issue of minimal distances between
varieties.
When the group met for the
3rd time in Essen, Germany, in
January 2011, Mr Raimundo
Lavignolle, Director of UPOV,
Mr Dirk Theobald, Head of the
CPVO Technical Unit and Mrs
Andrea Menne, head of the section
ornamental plants in the German
Bundessortenamt, were invited to
share information with the group
members about the D.U.S. system
for vegetal varieties from the perspective
of ruling bodies.
Sufficiently broad minimal
distances are essential in the ornamental
and fruit sector in order to
safeguard effective PBR protection.
The CIOPORA Working Group
will develop solutions on how to
cope with this difficult subject in
the future. |||
24 www.CIOPORA.org | CIOPORA Chronicle April 2011